The Trump-Russia scandal is the focus of several investigations that may or may not uncover new disclosures. But no matter the results of these inquiries one thing is perfectly clear: Trump is guilty.

No new information is needed about Russia’s covert hacking of the 2016 presidential election to determine that our president engaged in wrongdoing. From the get-go, Donald Trump and his minions have claimed they had nothing to do with the hack-and-leak operation undertaken by Russian intelligence to help Trump become president.

They have dismissed the matter as fake news and Trump has proclaimed, “believe me, there’s no collusion.” But even if there was no collusion, a harsher verdict can be rendered.

Trump, through his continued denial of Russian culpability during the months leading to the election even though he was told that private experts and U.S. intelligence had already determined that Russia hacked the DNC, his lunatic accusation that the DNC hacked itself, and his encouragement to the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails gave support for Putin’s effort to undermine an American election.

What we are talking about here is fire, not smoke. It is scandal, plain and simple.